On February 29, 2012, I canceled all my job interviews and bought a one-way ticket to Thailand instead. On April 23, 2012, I turned 26, moved out of my San Francisco apartment, and flew to Bangkok with some savings, no itinerary, and no plan. This blog follows what I've been up to since then ------April 2014: Finally calling San Francisco my home base again after two years of continuous vagabonding. ------July 2017: Back on the road again, working full-time and sticking to more familiar timezones. Getting to know new cities one month at a time.
I’m taking the week off for a solo, unplanned trip through Patagonia, with news notifications turned off and extremely crappy internet. It’s exciting! I feel like I’m getting back to my old backpacker roots. . On day 1 in Patagonia I decided to tackle the epic Laguna de Los Tres hike from El Chaltén, which summits at the base of the iconic Mt. Fitz Roy (aka the Patagonia logo) with a beautiful view of the “impressive cobalt blue waters” of the lagoon and the striking mountains behind. At least that’s what other peoples’ photos are of. My summit turned out to be a bit more... obscured. The lagoon was completely covered in snow (see: photo #7) and I was incredibly unprepared for the conditions (see: basically all videos). I guess this is why everyone in town was still calling this the low season!!! Who could have known?? As a bonus this day turned out to be 27km long, not 20 like it was supposed to be 🤨 And 328 floors climbed 😵 . Anyways, Day 1 learnings: sometimes planning ahead isn’t so bad, hiking shoes! they’re a good idea!, Patagonia is legit super gorgeous, bring a plush toy friend to help you though the tough times, and possibly even more crucial, pack plenty of wine #🍷 #🇦🇷 (at Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, El Chalten, Argentina.) https://www.instagram.com/p/BorSoi0hyQ9/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1j3mekmfxti
I’m finishing up my last few days in Oaxaca, having learned a bunch of Spanish and eaten all the grasshoppers and moles, and sampled all the Mezcal. I’ve finalized my last stops before heading back to San Francisco and I am STOKED for them all. Including home! All the things are great.
April 10 - May 9: Oaxaca
May 9 - 11: Mexico City
May 11 - June 8: Lima / Peru, reuniting with the WifiTribe
June 8 - 13: Mexico City, yet again. I always knew Mexico was rad as hell, but actually living here (and in places far from Tijuana) has given me some serious FEELS about this place.
June 13 - 18: Long Beach / Rosarito / San Diego, family time
June 18 - ??: San Francisco! Moving back into my old apartment right in time for Pride...
What an outstanding year this has turned out to be, all the places I’ve been have been so much more than I could have planned for, and I’ve learned heaps about heaps.
If you have the chance to do something like this for a while, I have to strongly recommend it.
Quick travel recap from our private boat in the BVI...
With standard backpacker luck, I just wrote out a post about how great the past months have been and it got erased and there’s likely nothing I can do about that. Anyways, I hear it’s about the journey not the destination so whatever, let’s go for it again.
So here’s another brief summary from the last 8 months or so:
- Kicked things off with 1 week in Upstate NY, for an Old Clone wedding (late July 2017)
- 1 month in Portland, OR (my baby brother got married; also the home to America’s #1 destination - Stripperaoke)
- 1 month in Chicago, where all dreams come true (at least in the summer), and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise
- 1 month in New Orleans, getting to know Bourbon St intimately beyond my wildest desires, including during a hurricane
- 1 week in the South, where I learned Atlanta was The Shit and Dollywood is THE ULTIMATE DESTINATION FOR ALL AMERICANS
- 1 week in St. Louis where I discovered America’s #2 destination, the CITY MUSEUM (you need to take my word for it on this one, it’s completely incredible)
- 1 month in Jamaica, where I got to know this larger-than-life country with a bunch of other remote workers (via Wifi Tribe) who quickly normalized this way to live
- 1 month in SoCal / Las Vegas, where I learned the wonders of having a cool sibling nearby, the limits of parking myself at home, and how rad Vegas can be as a solo, weekday adventure
- 1 week in SF, reconnecting with friends and remembering what made the exorbitant housing prices somehow worthwhile
- 1 month in Mexico City, eating the best meals OF MY LIFE and connecting with lovely friends old and new
- 6 weeks in Medellín, Colombia, meeting up with the Wifi Tribe again and also taking the time to crash my brother’s Colombian honeymoon
- NOW: 1 week in the British Virgin Isles, with 4 people I only know via the Wifi Tribe... AKA a solid group.
- NEXT: 1 month in Oaxaca to be hella alone and focus on personal projects, including improving my Spanish. It’s annoying to be a stereotypical American sometimes. (April - May 2018)
That’s about it! @laurie_was_here on IG is the best way to keep up to date with the random adventures I find myself on; I’m going to save and publish this before it gets erased, but feel free to swing by any of these trips!! <3
8 weeks since I gave away, stored, or packed all my belongings up. 8 weeks since I took a guess at what I’d need for the next 8 months, shoved those things in a suitcase, consumed some impromptu going away shots, and jumped in a cab to SFO. Reflecting back, it’s hard to imagine 8 weeks going better.
As many people have remarked over these two months, I'm a lucky asshole - and in my view, at no time is that more true than when I travel. Everywhere I’ve gone has been an outstanding combination of reuniting with old friends, creating memories with new ones, immersions in beautiful nature, and late nights in buzzing cities.
Stop 1: New York
I was here ostensibly for a wedding in upstate NY, but it doesn’t take that much to get me out to the city that never sleeps. Some highlights:
late nights with college buds from my old Berkeley co-op in NYC
ladies parties in upstate NY with our own giant private waterfall
a beautiful wedding at The Shell House
skipped the biggest rock OF MY LIFE
Stop 2: Portland
If you can’t have a good time in Portland, then it might be a good opportunity to take some time for reflection on how in fact that’s possible. In my case, natural hipster tendencies combined with local friends and a wedding I needed to be in town for anyway made Portland a natural, and absolutely amazing, choice to spend August in. A few choice highlights, out of many:
reunited with MORE friends from previously mentioned co-op. Once a Clone, always a Clone.
(Cloyne Court: “Silence and peace in an insane world.” - Ernest Bloch)
perfected a Bollywood dance for my baby brother’s wedding. See the amazing party THAT was.
spent time with so many friends and relatives who were in town for the wedding
melted my mind at the total solar eclipse
sang my heart out with a different group of friends each Sunday night at the world’s best karaoke (NSFW) - in a stroke of luck located just two blocks from my apartment
went on hike after hike after hike in the epic Columbia River Gorge, AKA “the greatest concentration of waterfalls in North America”, a 40min drive out of Portland,
went on hike after hike after hike of all the random and lovely parks within biking distance after work each day
experienced Portland’s famous “Adult Soapbox Derby”, which was way more fun than anyone expected
got to know the city via bicycle every day, using different routes and exploring different neighborhoods whenever I could
hosted 5 friends at my apt for various weekend adventures. This was a rare opportunity for someone used to ridiculous San Francisco housing!
randomly saw Michelle Tea read from her new book and read the audience’s tarot at Powell’s Bookstore
survived a month of record-breaking 100+ degree days with no A/C. Thus:
got naked and swam around at Portland’s finest clothing-optional beach
sampled all the Portland mainstays: Voodoo donuts, Pok Pok, Salt & Straw, Casa Diablo AKA the vegan strip club (where I won a shirt!)
met about 50 new fun weirdos
Fun things I learned about Portland, based on one month of residency:
All the bars serve food, have Big Buck Hunter and/or pinball, are open til 2:30am, and have fantastic happy hours
It rivals Denver for amount of weed shops I’ve ever seen, but when it comes to strip clubs Portland is the uncontested champ. Portland is also known for having some of the most churches per capita in the US, as well leading the country in the proportion of “religiously unaffiliated residents”. Make of all that what you will.
Something like 75% of people on Tinder listed “intersectional feminism” as an interest
Stop 3: Chicago
I’m about halfway through my time in the Windy City, so I’ll withhold judgment until I’m here for the full month.
What I mean is THIS CITY IS AMAZING AND IT’S JUST HARD TO PROCESS HOW GOOD IT IS YET.
I can’t believe that no one’s told me how great Chicago is before. I ended up here on a whim, yet this place has surprised and delighted me like no other American city, and I’m incredibly excited that I still have over two weeks left to appreciate it.
It’s hard to believe it’s been over three years since I returned from the two years of vagabonding that made up the contents of this blog, but here we are. It’s easy for time to pass quickly when you’re working hard at a job or relationship, focused on planning out the next stage of your life - or even just the weekend. And a lively city like San Francisco is particularly enabling in that way.
But the plan was never to settle down, not after I saw what was possible before. I’ve spent the last 3 years shoring up expertise in my field, and have reached a point where I’m working in a role that I find endlessly fulfilling - AND allows me to work remotely. So that’s what I’ll be doing starting July 26.
The plan is to slow travel for seven months while a friend sublets my space in SF. I’ll be working full-time during it all, which I’m actually excited about. Beyond the fact that I truly enjoy my job, it’ll be a much-welcome experience to not have to live a super budget lifestyle wherever I go: no more being moved to tears by a private bathroom.
I’m starting out with a month in Portland, then a month in Chicago, and then we’ll see what the winds have in store for me. Who knows what will happen, but there should be some good stories.
It’s been over a year since I took off on a solo international trip, and it’s long overdue. There really is nothing like taking yourself to the airport, overconsuming at the bar, boarding a plane full of strangers, watching the world explode from your window seat (which you always choose), and then have nothing between you and your next great adventure but the slow-moving horizon. Thinking about the other people on the plane, their stories, where they’re going to, and why, there’s always interesting explanations.
Experience-wise, I would always prefer a local bus or train over the restrictions of airports and sterility of airplanes, but there is something pretty magical about having a beer and waking up in a completely new world.
So here’s to exceptionally cheap plane tickets and flexible vacation policies, let’s go exploring!
I headed back to San Francisco in April 2014, almost exactly two years after I left. By a random coincidence my old room opened up for rent that month and I moved back in. Two weeks later I had a sweet job offer at a great mobile gaming company, and I soon picked up the friendships I'd left behind so abruptly when I left.
As always, I've been lucky: somehow there was no real consequence to me just packing up and leaving for two years. But maybe we overestimate how disruptive a deviation from the guided path might be, even one that does last that long.
I decided to stop backpacking basically because I got tired of it. I was tired of spending all my energy on trying to figure out where to go next, how to get there, where I would sleep that night, how to not get ripped off. I wanted a bed and friends and intellectual challenges. I had started backpacking in Mexico, planning on heading down Central to South America, meeting up with my Brazilian friends for the World Cup. I spent a month in southern Mexico, got a pretty nasty stomach flu, and decided I'd had enough for now. I realized Central and South America deserved a full effort from me (as well as a serious update to my Spanish "skills") in order to really appreciate them and, after two years of vagabonding, my heart just wasn't in it as much as it used to be. So I stopped.
And so here I am, six months after the fact, backpack emptied and clothes hung up in my closet, fully moved in and settled in to the always stimulating, always challenging San Francisco.
Chichén Itzá, the largest Mayan calendar in the world. The architectural precision is amazing, every detail unexpectedly significant… I nerded out pretty hard on it.
Hello from Guadalajara!
After two months visiting friends and family around the West Coast, I've packed my bag up and bought another one-way plane ticket (sober, this time). This time I'm starting in Mexico. I've spent the last two days in Guadalajara consuming copious cervezas y tacos in a hostel located near the city center, and in the morning I'm headed to meet up with friends in the sunny seaside town of Puerto Vallarta for a week.
And after that? I honestly have no idea. But it will probably be ridiculous.
The Poon Hill trek on the Annapurna trail: as good as its name deserves
You can't visit Nepal and not go on a trek.
It'd be like skipping Thailand's beaches or India's food. There's a reason these things are famous, and it's probably worth your trouble to experience it for yourself.
Because I essentially work 7 days a week for my online job, I'm always somewhat limited when it comes to "off the grid" activities, so when I arrived in Pokhara I looked into good short treks to do. The best Himalayan treks are about 2 weeks but logistically that was never an option for me, and if I'm being honest I'm just not interested in walking for that long. I like exploring and the outdoors, but spending most of my day walking in the woods is rarely as fulfilling as I hoped it would be.
I decided to do the Poon Hill trek. It's a 4-5 day trek through the Himalayas in the Annapurna region, and considered one of the best short treks you can do in Nepal. Plus, I mean... the name. Come on.
The route I took ended up taking me 5 quite leisurely trekking days, spending each night in one of the many $2 tea houses along the way with million dollar views. It was absolutely phenomenal (and freezing).
I did this trek in 5 days/4 nights, but it's easily doable in 4 days. For the ambitious, 3 is even possible. But I'm not hardcore at all, and the shoes I'd be using (in addition to my warm clothes) were knockoffs of unknown quality that I'd bought the day before at the local market, so I didn't want to ask too much of them. It was a good call - turns out that Nikes you bought new for $20 might not be great for mountaineering. But I never have appropriate footwear for these things and it always works out OK.
This is the most common circuit for Poon Hill. I started/ended at Naya Pul and spent the night at Birethani, Ghorepani, Tadapani, and Syuali. Hot tip for any other tools who need to work/access the internet while trekking in the freaking Himalayas: Ghorepani and Ghandruk have plenty of wifi and internet spots (nowhere else outside of Naya Pul does though). In Ghandruk you can even pick up a 2G signal if you have a SIM card. /nerd
The scenery on this hike is spectacular; you're constantly surrounded by towering snow-covered mountains or green valleys of rice paddies, and the weather when I did it in November was perfect.
view from my freezing room in Ghorepani - $2 USD a night
The route weaves through tiny hill villages periodically, and you'll frequently need to step aside to let hardworking groups of donkeys pass. This is how these areas get all their supplies, which is crazy to think about. The food you can buy is always marked up substantially ($4.50 vs $2.50 for a large beer; $4 vs $2 for a basic entree) but when you think of the journey everything had to travel to get there, it seems like a bargain.
For the highlight of this route, Poon Hill, you stay in Ghorepani, a 45min hike from the summit. Seeing the sunrise and the sunset are both popular viewing options from the top, and I did both. The sunrise viewing was much more popular and crowded, but they're both fantastic. Poon Hill has spectacular views regardless, especially with such clear weather like I had.
part of the 360-degree view from the 3-story viewing platform at the summit
It does get freezing as soon as the sun disappears though, so I brought a flask of local whiskey because that's how I counter the cold in Nepal. A strategy I highly recommend.
the sweet taste of success, chilled naturally via the Himalayas
sunset over Annapurna South
the next morning, sunrise from the watchtower
Both the sunrise and sunset were good, but if I had to recommend one I'd say do the sunset. Get there a little early for clear skies and warm-ish temperatures, and enjoy the slow set of the sun. The sunrise is much more crowded and you're shivering in the cold and dark for the first hour or so of it. Plus you'll need to get up at 5am. If you do go that route, do yourself a favor and bring plenty of whiskey.
I put together this video of the first 7 months of my trip, spent all in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos). Going back over stuff like this makes me never want to stop traveling. This is just one tiny corner of the globe!
This is what 598 days of spontaneous travel looks like, nerd style. Currently in the Tokyo airport on the last long layover before my next destination: California! Cheers to the next adventure.
The value of a Japanese rail pass, drinking for cheap in Tokyo, and other essential Japan travel advice.
Q: I recently bought a ticket to Japan and will be there (in the cold and snow...burrr) from Dec. 27- Jan. 15. You went earlier this fall and I wanted to pick your brain for any things to do or tips on getting around. We wont be able to climb Mt. Fuji but I did want to go see it, do you recommend any particular area to view the mountain from? How did you travel around Japan? They have Japan rail passes for tourists but I'm not sure if its worth the money... do you know anything about those?
the Japanese Tourist Rail Pass
Rail passes are totally worth it IF you want to see a lot of Japan. If you just want to see a few places and take your time there (definitely my preferred method of travel) then probably not. The Shinkansen (bullet train) is fast and famous and kinda cool, but honestly not worth the money if you're fine taking the bus (hitchhiking is also an option if you're up for it). For example, the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto took 1.5hrs and cost me $120 (!) but a bus would have been about $60 and taken 5hrs.
So it depends on what kind of budget you're on. I did it just to experience the famous bullet train but was underwhelmed and I wouldn't choose it again unless I'm traveling like a baller (not happening anytime soon). It's just a nice, efficient train. But this is Japan so EVERYTHING is nice and efficient. That said, if you want to see a bunch of places around the country the rail pass is totally worth it - the whole country is connected by these super fast rails so you can see a lot very quickly, and they leave really frequently (buses only like 1x or 2x a day typically). The rail pass is still shockingly expensive, but you'd definitely save if you're planning on doing a lot of rail travel anyway.
Budget Drinking in Tokyo
...Also a bonus tip for living/drinking cheaply in Japan - drinking in the
street is totally legal and there's convenience stores every 20ft
selling 500mL cans of strong beer or coolers (9% alc! kid you not) for $2 or less so just get some and walk around or sit somewhere on the sidewalk and people watch... the street was my favorite bar in Tokyo. Drinking or eating anything on the street is definitely seen as a low class move in Japanese culture but you're a foreigner ("gaijin") so you might as well own it, as people expect you to act different and are just happy that you're visiting their country and no one will ever give you disproving vibes. Anyways! Just one of my most valuable Japan travel tips, especially if you like to enjoy a beverage every now and then (in bars they're $8-$15 and often a cover charge too).
